Thursday, April 30, 2009

On 30 April Irish National Radio aired a report on Libertasacross Europe by Philip Boucher-HayesfollowedbyDeclanGanley and Eoin Ryan discussing Libertas. Ganley finds it difficult not to act like a mad man and presenter Pat Kenny continually has to tell him to let Eoin Ryan speak. Ganley has absolutely no manners. He was completely thrown by the revelations that he had offered personally offered a Dutch politics 800,000 euro to run for Libertas and Mach in the Czech Republic 500,000 euro. Ganley claimed he could not remember making the offers but as was the case with the Swedish Party June List Junilistan it was the politicians belief that the cash was for them solely. ganley then attempted to say that the funds were for a full campaign and he kept saying that Libertas are running 22 candidates in Holland.The problem with Declan Ganley is that no one believes a word he says. He shouts people down rather than answering questions. He also had his facts wrong about EU.

Surely Spain deserves to know that Robin Matthews is a recently retired Terror Warrior who was the spin doctor for the British forces in Afghanistan until just 9 months ago. In the length of time it takes to gestate a human baby he has allied with the far right, the anti abortionists and remarkably for a former officer in the British armed forces is Chairman of Libertas Northern Ireland.Lt Col Robin Matthews knows how to spin missile attacks on Afghan villages but sadly speaks no Spanish. Ten Hut.

Read on a see how a Spaniard blind man can get immensely wealthy...........did I mention that the blind union he led run a daily lottery? Oh yeah the ONCE that Duran ran.............. run a daily lottery ..............Ganley you dog, how do you find them. You solve the northern Irish problem and Gibraltar in one man and land a blind billionaire as part of the bargain. Semper Fi Ganley Ten HutOh and did I mention Duran is pro Europe?

Why are the Spanishcentre and slight left linking up with warmongers like Matthews and Ganley? This bloggers Spanish connections are scratching their heads. Franco may be partly to blame with his blend of far right militarism and anti people social policies.

Hasty launch for Libertas in SpainLIBERTAS: CIUDADANOSdeEspaña (Citizens of Spain), a loose coalition of three minuscule centre-left regional parties, was launched in Madrid last week in a hastily convened press conference to coincide with the visit to Spain of British politician Robin Mathews of Libertas UK.

Libertas: CiudadanosdeEspaña is made up of the Catalan-based PartidodeCiudadanos (Citizens’ Party), which campaigns against Catalan nationalism and wants closer ties to the central government; the Social Democratic Party (PSD), formed in 2007 by a few disaffected socialists; and the even smaller Pueblo deSalamanca , which is based in that city and, unlike the Citizens’ Party, is opposed to central government intervention.

Still in its infancy, the group has named only two candidates for the June 7th European elections, and at last week’s conference it was clear that many of its aims and ambitions still need to be ironed out and its organisation was still decidedly disorganised.

Mr Mathews said he was representing DeclanGanley who was unable to be present. But his speech was given in English and few of the 40 or so Spanish journalists there understood what he was saying.

Libertas: CiudadanosdeEspaña is led by the colourful and controversial Miguel Durán who has been blind from infancy and, as a Braille print operator, shot to fame in the 1990s at only 32 when he was appointed director-general of ONCE, a non-government organisation representing blind and disabled people.

Under his leadership ONCE became an immensely powerful and wealthy organisation with fingers in many financial pies. Mr Durán himself acquired immense wealth.

He left ONCE to become head of Tele 5, and failed to notice the irony of a blind man running one of the country’s largest television channels. In 1998 he was charged with insider trading and other financial irregularities. The shadow of these accusations hung over him until he was acquitted by the Supreme Court last summer.

Unlike some other European Libertas candidates, Mr Durán is pro-European. His gripe is the way Europe is being run, and he intends to campaign for greater transparency, a greater say for the people, and more control over MEPs’ expenses.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

If Naoise Nunn, the former Libertas director attacked by Declan Ganley because he now supports the Lisbon treaty, signed a confidentiality contract would he be legally entitled to break that contract now that Ganley has falsely accused him of working for the Fianna Fail party?

Ganley has made false claims in a vicious attack on Naoise Nunn whose public announcements about Libertas having dirty laundry and his current support for Lisbon treaty have fatally wounded Ganley's election chances. Ganley is behaving like a rabid dog as the electorate await his humane disposal at the polls.

LIBERTAS FOUNDER Declan Ganley has sharply criticised a former aide who helped to mastermind his organisation’s campaign against the Lisbon Treaty.

Libertas’s ex-executive director Naoise Nunn told The Irish Times this week that he now believed Ireland does not have the luxury of a second No vote because of the global economic crisis.

Mr Ganley claimed the former aide was “now working for Fianna Fáil as a consultant”. Mr Nunn is, in fact, doing work for former minister of state John McGuinness, and not directly for Fianna Fáil.

Responding on Newstalk’s Lunchtime with Eamon Keane to his former employee’s declaration that both sides had scaremongered during the referendum campaign, Mr Ganley said: “We certainly did not scaremonger . . . That is Fianna Fáil language if I ever heard it . . . We pointed out the facts.”

“I think it is significant that a person who was very much involved in the No campaign on the last occasion has come forward to say he believes it is in the best interests of Ireland now to ratify Lisbon when it comes before the people again.”

Meanwhile, Libertas has been formally registered as a political party in Ireland, following the passage without challenge of a 21-day period for an appeal to its inclusion on the Register of Political Parties.

Libertas’s headquarters is given as Mr Ganley’s Tuam, Co Galway, home, Moyne Park, and it can contest Dáil, European and local elections, though the focus now is on the European contest, said Libertas official John McGuirk.

“We intend to be an Irish political party and play a role in Irish political life, if we are successful. But at this stage we want to contest the Europeans. We don’t want to spread ourselves too thin,” he told The Irish Times .

Meanwhile, former GAA president and chief executive of Galway Vocational Education Committee Joe McDonagh has confirmed that he will not seek to run for Fianna Fáil against Mr Ganley and others in the North-West constituency.

“I won’t be doing that. I have enough to do here with the cutbacks, and everything else,” he said.

Libertas have successfully frustrated Ireland's political funding watchdog long enough to avoid the info regarding the funding of their Lisbon campaign in order to keep it out of the public domain until after the upcoming European elections. Transparency? Accountability ?I don' think so.

LIBERTAS HAS provided outstanding information on loans and other issues relating to its Lisbon Treaty referendum campaign to the Standards in Public Office Commission (Sipo).

In a report published last month, the commission said Libertas had “failed to provide the required information” despite a number of reminders.

However, at yesterday’s meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on European Affairs, commission secretary David Waddell confirmed that Libertas had now answered its inquiries.

“It was a source of considerable frustration to the Standards Commission that what it saw as reasonable inquiries did not receive a timely response,” he said.

Mr Waddell said the commission was considering the responses and would give its assessment of them in its annual report. Sipo wrote to Libertas on June 19th last requesting details of any loans provided to it from a financial institution or other person for the purposes of funding its referendum campaign.

Libertas founder DeclanGanley replied on August 13th, confirming that Libertas had received a personal loan from him. The commission wrote to Mr Ganley again on August 22nd requesting a copy of the legal agreement and repayment plan for the loan made to Libertas. The information was provided at the end of March.

From European Tribune

Libertas has suffered a triple whammy to its credibility as a force in Irish, never mind European politics, with the publication of a (PDF Alert) poll showing it gaining only 2% of first preference votes in the European Elections, losing 69 to 31% in a Lisbon referendum re-run, and with the remarks of it's ex-director in favour of ratifying the Treaty

IRELAND DOES not have the luxury of a second No vote in the Lisbon Treaty referendum and voters should vote Yes, one of the architects of last year's Libertas campaign has said.

Naoise Nunn, who resigned as executive director of Libertas last September said: "The circumstances have changed: internationally, economically, financially and domestically.

"We don't have the luxury of doing anything else. I am glad that we had a referendum. We were the only member state to do so, to have a proper debate, or something like a proper debate," Mr Nunn told The Irish Times .

His public declaration will come as an embarrassment for Libertas founder, Declan Ganley, who is running for the organisation in the European Parliament elections in the North-West constituency.

Both sides were guilty, he said, of "scare-mongering and misinformation" during the referendum campaign. Mr Nunn, who was one of the central figures in Libertas's campaign last year, is understood to have written a detailed critique of Libertas's performance last year for Mr Ganley's attention before his departure last year.

In Ireland's single transferable vote proportional representation system, Declan Ganley will have to achieve at least 15% of the first preference vote in order to be elected (plus c. another 10% of lower preference votes transferred from candidates with less votes on their elimination from the count). Even allowing for the fact that this poll is very early in the campaign, and the fact that we might expect Ganley to do better in his home constituency, achieving those sorts of numbers from such a low base is a very tall order.

Libertas has attracted quite a lot of negative publicity in both print and television media since the last Referendum campaign chiefly focusing on Ganley's murky business dealings in Albania and eastern Europe, his close links with the US military industrial establishment, alleged ties to the US neo-conservative Heritage Foundation, and the lack of transparency surrounding Libertas' funding.

Getting people to vote against a Treaty they are not sure about is one thing, especially when the vote can be cast as a vote against a remote "European Elite" and an extremely unpopular Irish political establishment. Getting people to vote for someone they are not sure about is quite another, and in a climate of distrust against entrepreneurial businessmen who are seen as the main authors of Ireland's boom to bust economy, this may be a particularly inopportune time for Ganley to run.

There are also increasing signs of a popular campaign in favour of Lisbon as evidenced by a recently launched Pro-Lisbon Youth Group called Generation Yes. Younger voters voted predominantly against the Lisbon Treaty the last time around.

The Irish electorate also have a history of being quite discriminating in how they cast their votes, and may well exercise their animus against their Government in the European Parliament polls rather than through any re-run of the Lisbon Referendum. The same (PDF Alert) poll shows Fianna Fail - the lead Government party - down from 42% in the 2007 general election to a projected 23% in the forthcoming European Parliament polls. The chief beneficiary of their decline has been the opposition Labour Party which is up from 10% to 19% in the same poll leaving it in with a strong chance of increasing it's representation in the European Parliament from 1 to c. 3 seats.

The Government's cause was not helped by a recent re-shuffle when one of the sacked ministers, John McGuinness, hired Naoise Nunn to advise him on his caustic criticisms of the Tanaiste (deputy Prime Minister) and the Government in general: Libertas spin doctor advised McGuinness

Dick Roche kept his portfolio as Minister for European Affairs and has promised me an interview for this blog. If you have any questions you would particularly like me to ask him, please submit them in the comments below!

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

When Libertas say they are the party of transparency what do they really mean?Here is an example of Libertas founder DeclanGanley's transparency when he was confronted with questions about funding for the Lisbon referendum in Ireland.

On 11 June 2008 the Irish Independent reported that Ganley had " reacted angrily yesterday to questions about the financing of his Libertas group."He went on , no doubt angrily. that he had only spent €6,500 personally on the campaign and that he remainder of Libertas' (alleged) €1.3m budget coming from donations. Furthermore he asserted that it was untrue to say he had invested this money. Ganley in fact said:

This is the thing, it's untrue to say I have invested this money. We're getting donations in every day from business, from taxi drivers, from all sorts of people

By 19 September 2008 Ganley told the Irish Times that he had in fact made a least one loan of 200,000 Euro to Libertas and his employees say that this was a a commercial rate of interest. He also admitted that other people had also provided loans This claim was made in order to assert that Libertas had acted within Irish law when Ganley funded huge amounts of their anti Lisbon campaign. However the fact that in June he said that all the money bar his own donation of 6,500 came from donations was false. The fact that he admitted his own huge loan and other loans in September means that his "angry" statements were pure bluster and were NOT transparent.

Whereas it may be argued that such carry on is typical in politics there is no way to argue that his "angry" June statements prior to the election were transparent or truthful.

Ganley today backed down from a legal challenge he had brought against the Village magazine .The article included the following quotation about Mr. Ganley " “He’s a liar, a self-mythologiser, a snake-oil salesman”"

Whatever the case may be about his sales of snake oil to the Irish it is abundantly clear that he deliberately misled the Irish electorate with his "angry" statements to The Irish Independent last June just days before the Lisbon referendum.

Irish voters will have the opportunity to cast their vote on Mr. Ganley in on June 5.If in doubt keep him out and vote for any other candidate except a Libertas candidate.

ANTI-treaty campaigner DeclanGanley reacted angrily yesterday to questions about the financing of his Libertas group.

He said he had personally spent just under €6,500 -- the maximum personal donation allowable -- with the remainder of Libertas' €1.3m budget coming from donations from the public.

"This is the thing, it's untrue to say I have invested this money. We're getting donations in every day from business, from taxi drivers, from all sorts of people," he said.

In his final news conference in Dublin, he said the 'Yes' side was finding it very uncomfortable to see the people of Ireland rising up and saying 'No' to a treaty that was "clearly a bad deal for the people of Ireland and for all of the people of Europe".

"These people (the Libertas volunteers) are here of their own free will, they're not being paid, they're out there and we've got hundreds of people across this country campaigning for a 'No' vote because it's in the interest of our country and of all the citizens.

Mr Ganley then said: "Thank you" to reporters and walked off abruptly to the black-coloured 'Vote No to Lisbon' bus parked on Merrion Square.

His group's €1.3m budget is greater than the combined budgets of all the major political parties. Fianna Fail is spending €600,000, Fine Gael is spending €500,000 and Labour is spending about €200,000.

TaoiseachBrian Cowen attacked Libertas yesterday, saying the group was spending more money than all the political parties put together "and nobody knows where their money comes from".

Fine Gael European Affairs spokeswoman Lucinda Creighton called on the group to "come clean" on the source of its funding.

"It is extremely disturbing that a group that is outspending Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour put together will not disclose the sources of its funding," she said.

Mr Ganley said his group would provide full disclosure of its donations in accordance with the rules of the Standards in Public Office commission.

He accused the 'Yes' side of trying to bully potential 'No' voters -- trying to scare them. into changing their mind.

THE FOUNDER of Libertas, business man DeclanGanley, says he gave a personal loan of €200,000 to help fund its campaign against the Lisbon Treaty.

Speaking to The Irish Times Mr Ganley said the organisation's spend on the campaign was "about €800,000". He said a number of people provided loans but he did not have a total figure for the amount lent. The money that did not come from loans came from donations from Irish people and companies, he said. "All of the money was raised in Ireland."

On Today FM'sThe Last Word Mr Ganley said: "The first loan that I gave was in the region of about €200,000." He later said this was the only loan.

During the Lisbon campaign the communications director for Libertas John McGuirk indicated it had a budget of €1.3 million. The law limits the amount an individual donor can give to a group such as Libertas in any one year to € 6,348.69. However, loans can be made as long as they are "bonafide", according to the Standards in Public Office Commission.

The Libertas website currently invites people to make donations, whether over the internet, by electronic transfer to its account in Tuam, Co Galway, or by cheque.

The leader of Fine Gael, Enda Kenny, and a spokesman for Minister for the Environment John Gormley, both said yesterday that the law on political fund-raising might have to be changed to increase transparency.

Asked yesterday if Libertas intended becoming involved in politics, Mr Ganley said that depended on whether Brussels and the Irish Government "respect the referendum result, the democratically expressed will of the people".

Speaking on RTÉ radio's News At One yesterday Mr Ganley said there was a need for "fresh blood" in Irish politics. "There is a need to grip the reins and take control of this mess that people like Dick Roche have got us into. Something needs to be done," he said. He was responding to Mr Roche who called Mr Ganley a "grade A hypocrite". Mr Roche said Mr Ganley had been saying there was a lack of transparency in Europe but his company, Rivada Networks, had secured substantial US government contracts using arrangements instituted to assist tribal corporations in Alaska. "I think anyone who reads into the arrangement of these contracts would see that they are quite bizarre."

Mr Ganley said if people like Mr Roche "had properly nurtured entrepreneurship instead of a stamp duty collecting, property inflating, bubble producing, economic process, we wouldn't find ourselves in the situation economically we are in now."

Mr Ganley is chief executive of a US company called Rivada Networks, which has a joint venture with an Alaskan native corporation, Nana Pacific. The joint venture, Rivada Pacific, has secured communications contracts worth $37 million in recent years from the US military, according to the website, www.fedspending.org. It's largest customer is the US Northern Command. Because of the involvement of the native Alaskan corporation, the joint venture is not subject to US procurement rules that would otherwise apply.

Mr Ganley told The Irish Times last night that Rivada didn't decide how the US authorities ran their tenders and he would not apologise to Mr Roche for his firm winning communications contracts.

"This has nothing to do with my business . . . Mr Roche won't abide by the will of the people . . . to say no to the Lisbon treaty. . ." he said.

"Even with our atrocious libel laws I thought we would win but at great expense," he added.

Barrington, however, admitted, his real fear was that Ganley would drag it out for months and drop it at the last minute.

"I never thought he would risk open court but I thought he would try and bully us with his millions."

Barrington said he was in touch with the relevant witnesses in the US, who were smeared by former Bush big hitter Jack Shaw and Ganley, and they had told him they were prepared to come and testify to back up the contentious comment that Ganley had "covertly" inserted a clause into a telecommunications contract.

"The only problem was this was all going to have to paid by us," he journalist said.

The other controversial comment was a quote describing Ganley as a "liar, self-mythologiser and snake oil salesman."

That was not a problem in the slightest to the lawyers, Barrington said.

"We sat with the lawyers and rang Dick Roche and together we made this lengthy list of blatant lies."

"Liar? We could prove that in spades," he added.

Ganley first sought unsucessfully

DUBLIN WEDS, 1130 AM.BREAKING NEWS.

Libertas leader Declan Ganley has just dropped his libel case against Ireland's Village Magazine.

"Even with our atrocious libel laws I thought we would win but at great expense," he added.

Barrington, however, admitted, his real fear was that Ganley would drag it out for months and drop it at the last minute.

"I never thought he would risk open court but I thought he would try and bully us with his millions."

Barrington said he was in touch with the relevant witnesses in the US, who were smeared by former Bush big hitter Jack Shaw and Ganley, and they had told him they were prepared to come and testify to back up the contentious comment that Ganley had "covertly" inserted a clause into a telecommunications contract.

"The only problem was this was all going to have to paid by us," he journalist said.

The other controversial comment was a quote describing Ganley as a "liar, self-mythologiser and snake oil salesman."

That was not a problem in the slightest to the lawyers, Barrington said.

"We sat with the lawyers and rang Dick Roche and together we made this lengthy list of blatant lies."

"Liar? We could prove that in spades," he added.

Ganley first sought unsucessfully

Declan Ganley, Snakeoil Salesman (Feb Village by Kevin Barrington)Did everyone at the back get their snakeoil?

The honeymoon is over for Declan Ganley and brand “Libertas”. And the brand ‘s keeper, having being carried grinning over the publicity threshold by the positive if not sycophantic initial media coverage, is none too happy about it. In fact he seems to verging on paranoia as one of the latest “successful applicants” to join “team Libertas”demonstrates. Kevin O’Connell, a former deputy director of Europol, has been taken on board to represent Libertas in the UK. O’Connell was employed by Declan Ganley’s group last year as a “security advisor” whose role included “vetting staff and potential candidates”, as well as monitoring the press coverage that was becoming of mounting concern to Ganley. Ganley was troubled by what he labelled “conspiracy theories” surrounding his American business contracts and the funding of his Lisbon treaty campaign. O’Connell, obviously unperturbed by any possible conflict of interest, concluded that Ganley “has been the subject of a sustained and co-ordinated information campaign intended to destroy his political credibility”. “I looked into the matter and was concerned at what I found - and decided that if Libertas would have me as a candidate, I would run”, he added. O’Connell obviously passed his own vetting and was taken on board. This, however, was not the first time O’Connell had been involved with Ganley. As Deputy Director of Europol, O’Connell spoke at Ganley’s First Annual Forum On Public Safety In Europe and North America. The conference, which Ganley has hosted several times, along with the University of Limerick, generally lures big names, Al Gore being the most glittering catch so far. And in between the talks on general defence-related issue by such luminaries, Ganley and a host of senior ex-US-military Rivada Network employees, plug their own security-related communications products., O’Connell’s 2007 talk centred on how “the requirements of law enforcement and public safety professionals are falling behind the potential of the technology” – a theme very much music to the ears of Rivada’s marketing department., All a happy coincidence? Perhaps. The motivation, however, behind the conferences is not humanitarian but is the real-life actualisation of Ganley’s Entrepreneurial Rules [see previous article]. The rules are appropriate, or at least normal, in internatonal commerce. However, Ganley was entering a different battlefield with his new brand “Libertas “, a battlefield where Transparency and Accountability - the toxic Unique Selling Points (USPs), were required. We are now well used to the plummy voice of Declan Ganley railing against the “unaccountable elites” in Brussels and calling for greater transparency.

Time and time again Ganley responded to interviewers’ questions as to what he and Libertas stood for: Transparency and accountability, now wrapped in a right wing social agenda, became an integral part of the brand. The problem with such a USP is that it presupposes a standard of behaviour – in its proponents. And therein lay the start of Declan Ganley’s major problem, the potential seeds of his own destruction. Little did he realise he was now setting himself up for the scrutiny that he had avoided. And as the Celtic Tiger died so too did blind adulation for the buccaneer entrepreneur. The positive became the probing, mystery was seen as murk.

A few postings on the web had alluded to Ganley’s role in Iraq around the time of the launch of Libertas. But it was after the referendum that the unsightly picture got a fuller, more public unveiling. Ganley was part of a consortium chasing the untapped and hugely lucrative Iraqi mobile-phone market. Having failed, he picked himself up and went after a police network. Assisting him was the now-disgraced Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens who had slipped his Eskimo loophole into the Iraqi reconstruction effort. Stevens had introduced positive discrimination legislation to boost the Eskimo economy by allowing them non-competitive tenders for government contracts: get an eskimo front going and you have a one-way ticket to boomtown. But Declan Ganley wanted a bigger boom for his buck, so he covertly inserted a new clause into the police contract stating it would be the first step in a move to roll out a nationwide civilian network, the very network he had just been refused. Like those he now criticises, Ganley wasn’t taking No for an answer. His covert clause, however, was spotted by vigilant officials. And the contract was rescinded. But the officials, later completely vindicated, were accused by Ganley of corruption and fell foul of his Washington big-hitter allies - forcing their resignation. But Ganley and his partners’ scheming for more money led to a two-year delay in the police network at a very critical time. “During that time thousands of American soldiers and Iraqi police officers were killed, at least some of whom could have been saved had they been able to pick up a phone and call for help”, author T Christian Miller states in his book “Blood Money. Wasted Billions, Lost Lives and Corporate Greed In Iraq”.And in a scathing indictment of unaccountable elites, Miller continues: “The whole episode was a shameful victory of narrow business interests over a vital strategic policy”. Ganley, for his part, denies the contract was revoked and says he walked away due to murky affairs he is unable to elaborate on. Stevens’ Eskimo loophole has continued to pay Ganley dividends through “sweetheart” contracts with the US National Guard and other federal bodies. Not illegal. But the exploitation of positive discrimination legislation is hardly the foundation for his transparency and accountability platform. Further erosion to the platform is provided by the fact that Ganley’s wife Delia , operating under her maiden name, contributes to Senator Stevens. As she does to Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, where Rivada got lucratives communications contracts with the National Guard. Nothing wrong there either. Delia Ganley is entitled to use her maiden name and contribute to these two Senators. But what have both senators got in common? They both chart this year in the Citizens for Good Governance Top Twenty Most Corrupt politicians. Transparency/Accountability?

It seems someone out there is calling the elites to account but it’s sure not Declan Ganley. As such stories circulate, Ganley’s personal bog to mansion story comes under closer scrutiny by the day. “He’s a liar, a self-mythologiser, a snake-oil salesman”, Minister for European Affairs Dick Roche told Village Magazine. The truth was slowly emerging. There is no way Ganley can keep the lid on such a catalogue of lies and dirty deeds, Minister Roche added.

Declan Ganley has caused his action against the Village Magazine to be struck out this morning at the High Court in Dublin. The action arose over an article by Kevin Barrington in which issues were raised about Ganley's attempts to get mobile phone licences in Iraq in 2004.

An agreement reached between Mr Ganley and the Village magazine allowed for an interview with Mr. Ganley to be publishes in the last issue,.

Howver Bruce Arnold who was one of the journalists on Mr Ganley's list wrote an article about Mrt. ganley alleging all sorts of smearing tactics. The article did not fall within the agreement with the Village which was that Mr. Ganley would answer in an interview the substantial allegations and assertions raised in the Village piece.

Michael Smith editor of the Village in a two page article that immediately followed Arnold's rant stated that Arnold's piece in no way dealt with or adhered to the agreement that the Village magazine had with Ganley and he would therefore NOT pay Arnold his sought fee of 500 euro.

The gauntlet appeared to have been laid done for Ganley , however today he backed down from pursuing the matter further in court.

Today 28 April Declan Ganley agreed in the High Court to withdraw proceedings he had taken against Village over the article displayed immediately below. Village paid no damages to Mr Ganley and the article remained on the shelves, despite Mr Ganley’s threats to have it removed in February. The article - among other things - quoted Minister for Europe Dick Roche saying Mr Ganley was a liar. Village agreed to publish an interview with Mr Ganley in its April edition but the chosen interviewer, Mr Bruce Arnold, submitted a piece which gave no evidence he had interviewed Mr Ganley for Village but was instead a paean to him. We published it anyway.

Below we also publish Bruce Arnold’s (non)-interview and our response to that article - making three articles in total!

Declan Ganley, Snakeoil Salesman (Feb Village by Kevin Barrington)Did everyone at the back get their snakeoil?

The honeymoon is over for Declan Ganley and brand “Libertas”. And the brand ‘s keeper, having being carried grinning over the publicity threshold by the positive if not sycophantic initial media coverage, is none too happy about it. In fact he seems to verging on paranoia as one of the latest “successful applicants” to join “team Libertas”demonstrates. Kevin O’Connell, a former deputy director of Europol, has been taken on board to represent Libertas in the UK. O’Connell was employed by Declan Ganley’s group last year as a “security advisor” whose role included “vetting staff and potential candidates”, as well as monitoring the press coverage that was becoming of mounting concern to Ganley. Ganley was troubled by what he labelled “conspiracy theories” surrounding his American business contracts and the funding of his Lisbon treaty campaign. O’Connell, obviously unperturbed by any possible conflict of interest, concluded that Ganley “has been the subject of a sustained and co-ordinated information campaign intended to destroy his political credibility”. “I looked into the matter and was concerned at what I found - and decided that if Libertas would have me as a candidate, I would run”, he added. O’Connell obviously passed his own vetting and was taken on board. This, however, was not the first time O’Connell had been involved with Ganley. As Deputy Director of Europol, O’Connell spoke at Ganley’s First Annual Forum On Public Safety In Europe and North America. The conference, which Ganley has hosted several times, along with the University of Limerick, generally lures big names, Al Gore being the most glittering catch so far. And in between the talks on general defence-related issue by such luminaries, Ganley and a host of senior ex-US-military Rivada Network employees, plug their own security-related communications products., O’Connell’s 2007 talk centred on how “the requirements of law enforcement and public safety professionals are falling behind the potential of the technology” – a theme very much music to the ears of Rivada’s marketing department., All a happy coincidence? Perhaps. The motivation, however, behind the conferences is not humanitarian but is the real-life actualisation of Ganley’s Entrepreneurial Rules [see previous article]. The rules are appropriate, or at least normal, in internatonal commerce. However, Ganley was entering a different battlefield with his new brand “Libertas “, a battlefield where Transparency and Accountability - the toxic Unique Selling Points (USPs), were required. We are now well used to the plummy voice of Declan Ganley railing against the “unaccountable elites” in Brussels and calling for greater transparency.

Time and time again Ganley responded to interviewers’ questions as to what he and Libertas stood for: Transparency and accountability, now wrapped in a right wing social agenda, became an integral part of the brand. The problem with such a USP is that it presupposes a standard of behaviour – in its proponents. And therein lay the start of Declan Ganley’s major problem, the potential seeds of his own destruction. Little did he realise he was now setting himself up for the scrutiny that he had avoided. And as the Celtic Tiger died so too did blind adulation for the buccaneer entrepreneur. The positive became the probing, mystery was seen as murk.

A few postings on the web had alluded to Ganley’s role in Iraq around the time of the launch of Libertas. But it was after the referendum that the unsightly picture got a fuller, more public unveiling. Ganley was part of a consortium chasing the untapped and hugely lucrative Iraqi mobile-phone market. Having failed, he picked himself up and went after a police network. Assisting him was the now-disgraced Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens who had slipped his Eskimo loophole into the Iraqi reconstruction effort. Stevens had introduced positive discrimination legislation to boost the Eskimo economy by allowing them non-competitive tenders for government contracts: get an eskimo front going and you have a one-way ticket to boomtown. But Declan Ganley wanted a bigger boom for his buck, so he covertly inserted a new clause into the police contract stating it would be the first step in a move to roll out a nationwide civilian network, the very network he had just been refused. Like those he now criticises, Ganley wasn’t taking No for an answer. His covert clause, however, was spotted by vigilant officials. And the contract was rescinded. But the officials, later completely vindicated, were accused by Ganley of corruption and fell foul of his Washington big-hitter allies - forcing their resignation. But Ganley and his partners’ scheming for more money led to a two-year delay in the police network at a very critical time. “During that time thousands of American soldiers and Iraqi police officers were killed, at least some of whom could have been saved had they been able to pick up a phone and call for help”, author T Christian Miller states in his book “Blood Money. Wasted Billions, Lost Lives and Corporate Greed In Iraq”.And in a scathing indictment of unaccountable elites, Miller continues: “The whole episode was a shameful victory of narrow business interests over a vital strategic policy”. Ganley, for his part, denies the contract was revoked and says he walked away due to murky affairs he is unable to elaborate on. Stevens’ Eskimo loophole has continued to pay Ganley dividends through “sweetheart” contracts with the US National Guard and other federal bodies. Not illegal. But the exploitation of positive discrimination legislation is hardly the foundation for his transparency and accountability platform. Further erosion to the platform is provided by the fact that Ganley’s wife Delia , operating under her maiden name, contributes to Senator Stevens. As she does to Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, where Rivada got lucratives communications contracts with the National Guard. Nothing wrong there either. Delia Ganley is entitled to use her maiden name and contribute to these two Senators. But what have both senators got in common? They both chart this year in the Citizens for Good Governance Top Twenty Most Corrupt politicians. Transparency/Accountability?

It seems someone out there is calling the elites to account but it’s sure not Declan Ganley. As such stories circulate, Ganley’s personal bog to mansion story comes under closer scrutiny by the day. “He’s a liar, a self-mythologiser, a snake-oil salesman”, Minister for European Affairs Dick Roche told Village Magazine. The truth was slowly emerging. There is no way Ganley can keep the lid on such a catalogue of lies and dirty deeds, Minister Roche added.

“INTERVIEWING DECLAN GANLEY (current April Village by Bruce Arnold)A Lesson for the Uninitiated”

Declan Ganley launched his undeniably ambitious political career five years ago as a sponsor of The Forum to Debate the Constitution for Europe 2004. The two-day event, held in Galway, contains many of the seeds that sprouted into Libertas. Anyone seriously interested in interviewing Declan Ganley and finding out the main points in his career, needs to start here.

So, it was an international project involving participants from around the world and, yes, among them was Dick Roche, later to become Ireland’s Junior Minister for Europe and both a self-declared as well as an exclusive expert on the Lisbon Treaty.

Roche was later responsible for the delivery of abusive and dishonest slurs on Declan Ganley’s character and motivations, notably in Village Magazine, where he called him – without offering any basis for the slander – ‘a liar, a self-mythologiser, a snake-oil salesman’. Roche has collaborated more closely than is admitted by Village Magazine, with Kevin Barrington and was in the offices of the magazine on the morning Ganley’s solicitors delivered their legal documents.

Barrington also works as a copywriter in an advertising agency which has been awarded Government contracts dealing with pro-Lisbon material. Is there a conflict of interest here? One of several?

The articles are full of personal sneers, inaccuracies and allegations about corrupt actions that are not supported by facts and were not checked by any interview with the subject of the sustained attack. The editor, Michael Smith, who also offered in the first issue of Village Magazine to pay €10,000 for ‘verifiable information’ on Libertas funding in the Referendum – a requirement not followed in the articles – has admitted that this was wrong. I have checked the allegations and do not even consider them worthy of further consideration. They are part of the history of rumour that is used to denounce people. If an ounce or two of them had been delivered against Bertie Ahern by the brave men in Irish politics when the explanations he gave became dubious and contradictory in 2006, when first I wrote of them, we would not now be in the mess we are in.

Let us move on. In 2007 Declan Ganley launched the Libertas Website. His approach was businesslike, clearly focused and it emphasised the seriousness of the main issues facing the ordinary people of Ireland in coming to terms with what Ganley thought of as a huge European swindle contained in the incomprehensible Lisbon Treaty. Whether he was right or not remains to be seen, but he took up vital public issues over the planned Referendum, which only Ireland was holding.

The first of these was the Government’s outrageous changing of the law in order to stop the Referendum Commission from issuing a booklet telling voters what the for-and-against arguments were, in the case of the Lisbon Treaty a crucial requirement.

The Ahern Government is guilty of extraordinary and deliberate confusion over Lisbon by this quite improper change in the Referendum legislation. As a result, the Commission never did deal with this satisfactorily. Instead, it offered a superficial babble about the Treaty. This was far from being fair and balanced. The Commission is likely to do exactly the same again, the second time round. Ironically, even if it wanted to, it cannot easily rectify its position and tell the truth because the law stops it from being fair and balanced.

Ganley also attacked the use of State and Government resources in promoting a Yes Vote. The Government view in favour was all right. State funding was not. Ganley was also sharply critical of Dick Roche. Roche had attacked ‘bringing in people from outside to influence the referendum campaign’. This attack was made nonsensical by Brian Cowen. Quite improperly he invited President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel to help the Yes Vote campaign, thus starting a process that looks as though it will thoroughly abuse the use of outsiders and their money if the Referendum is run again. It seems when the government brings in people to support its policies it is all right; when others do the same it is condemned as disloyal or improper.

Ganley went on, in the early months of 2008 to deal with the subjugation of the Irish Constitution to the Lisbon Treaty – itself a new and supreme ‘Constitution’ for Europe – and raised repeatedly unanswered questions on tax reforms that would damaged investment here and the loss of Ireland’s World Trade Organisation veto. The first of these issues was subsequently reinforced by the French Finance Minister’s confirmation that France would push for equalisation of European tax positions.

By April the early salvoes on the EU democratic deficit – the simple fact that the Lisbon Treaty confirmed the creation of a European Federal State without democratic authority – was receiving unintentional support from Barroso and the Commission Vice-President, Margot Wallstrom.

There was a leaked Department of Foreign Affairs email. It was becoming increasingly evident that concealment was going on. The Referendum Commission was not being even-handed. The Government were appalled at the fate of Bertie Ahern at the hands of the Tribunal into his money. He was unlikely to win the Lisbon contest, and was disposed of by the Party.

It became clear – thanks to a gaffe by Dick Roche – that the Referendum would be Ireland’s last on Europe. That is, of course, so long as the vote was Yes. But Dick Roche and the Government got the wrong result.

At the beginning of May 2008, the campaign was distorted into one about how much gratitude we owed to membership of the European Union, with the implicit and dishonest message that we would lose out. Here was a Treaty no one understood, here were taxation threats, a WTO veto that the Forum on Europe confirmed was removed, farmers and workers getting jittery and the new and untried Taoiseach taking up the cry that a No Vote would be disastrous. We would learn, soon enough, that it is politicians who are disastrous.

Declan Ganley confronted this with his Libertas campaign. He won. He carried the popular vote. Others helped but he was the mainspring of analytical and forceful political opposition. Not for the first time, do I assert that, in a world of turbulence that was to lead into crisis during that turnaround year of 2008, he was the most successful Irish politician.

At the very least, this was the material for major interviews by anyone interested in the phenomenon of an Irish politician with a new organisation, no political party machine to back him but a set of unarguable convictions that weighed with the Irish voting public.

Instead, there were several serious, if inept, attempts to undermine his credibility with a mire of untried, untested and often inadequately researched allegations, some of which contained deliberate obscuring of the true facts.

The government continued to contribute to this negative approach by floundering its way into European Summit negotiations which contained public relations ‘performance’ by Michéal Martin and Brian Cowen, who tried to pass off a few opinions about what might be done before a second Referendum Vote as ‘massive achievements’.

They were no such things. Government strategy almost completely ignored all the Libertas issues. Instead they sought to persuade the relatively small group of voters in the first Referendum who had fears over neutrality, abortion and other social or moral issues, and presented this as ‘an achievement’, and ‘a landmark day for Ireland’ in which ‘after intense negotiation’ Ireland’s position in the European Union, which of course was never in doubt, had been ‘secured’!

The Government, represented by Micheál Martin and the Taoiseach, secured nothing whatever to satisfy doubts about democracy in the EU. They did little better over taxation and other issues raised during the campaign.

Declan Ganley had made the running on these issues, which had produced such a convincing No Vote six months ago and they were set aside in an adroit and entirely meretricious way. The truth is that Michéal Martin has buried a hatchet in his own head on the Lisbon Treaty since he has not addressed any of the major issues. One of the reasons is that they cannot be addressed. This was my considered view at the time and continues so to be. It will cause any Yes Campaign, however much European money is poured into it, to unravel.

What happened then, in terms of Declan Ganley’s level of political achievement, was that he began to make history with his impact in Europe. For the first time in the political annals of this country, one of its more dynamic figures has spread his own political impact over more than half the countries in Europe. Declan Ganley now has 50 candidates for Libertas in Germany, more than 30 in France, 72 in the United Kingdom, eight in Latvia, three in Malta of all places, and 50 in Poland. He has groups working for the election of Libertas candidates in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Estonia, Lithuania, Sweden, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. This too has been the subject of further attempts to rubbish him.

He argues – in the interviews I have had with him about this – that the achievement and its potential impact on the European elections, is what interviewers should be asking him about. I agree with him on this.

Instead, as the last issue of Village Magazine showed, enormous energies are being expended in trying to find out things about Declan Ganley that, if they were true, would be decidedly detrimental to everything he has done. Any old slur will do.

This displays a tortured and relentless animosity, damaging, because people like to hear bad things about other people, and they are often easier to deliver than good things. This line of journalism, taken by Village Magazine and also by the RTE Prime Time Programme on Declan Ganley, was, in my personal view, not only unfair and unbalanced but malicious as well.

Declan Ganley, Liar? (current April Village by Michael Smith)Village and Declan Ganley

Village published material about Declan Ganley in its February-March edition. Mr Ganley initiated proceedings for defamation, saying he wanted to get all copies of that magazine taken off the shelves. In the end he agreed to an adjournment of his action until after the publication of this, current edition which meant the February-March edition stayed on the shelves. In return Village and he agreed a statement:

The Statement

Village Magazine strongly upholds the right to engage in vigorous investigation and comment on matters of public interest. Mr. Ganley not only supports, but advocates this right. The Village however acknowledges that, given the opportunity, it would have been preferable to have interviewed Mr. Ganley before publishing serious allegations about him. It has now been afforded this opportunity and will in the next edition record and publish accurately the answers given by Mr. Ganley in a wide ranging interview relating to both the issues giving rise to these proceedings and to other issues of interest to Mr. Ganley and to the public.

Attempts to get an interviewer

We attempted to commission a number of Ireland’s most respected journalists including Fintan O’Toole, Keelin Shanley, Michael Clifford, Justine McCarthy and Olivia O’Leary to carry out this interview but for contractual or other reasons they could not do it. We also suggested Frank Connolly, Harry Browne and Damien Kiberd who were willing to do it but Declan Ganley was unwilling to be interviewed by them. He was willing to be interviewed by Vincent Browne or me but Vincent could not do it and I, as editor, felt I should preserve some distance from this legally-driven interview. Declan Ganley wanted to be interviewed by Bruce Arnold. He suggested a list of seven names including George Hook, Jason O’Toole, David Quinn, Eamon Dunphy, Matt Cooper, Richard Waghorne and Hermann Kelly. We were happy with Eamon Dunphy and he generously agreed to do the interview but in the end could not, for contractual reasons. Time was moving on so we felt the best thing in the circumstances was to hear from Mr Ganley in close to his own terms, from a journalist of integrity who is well disposed to him. Bruce Arnold it was.

Bruce Arnold and the interview

We forwarded to Bruce Arnold the affidavit which included Village’s defence to the libel proceedings. Much of the substance of that affidavit is outlined below. Readers will make their own minds up about how well Bruce Arnold has delivered on the requirement, agreed between Village and Mr Ganley to “record and publish accurately the answers given by Mr. Ganley in a wide ranging interview relating to both the issues giving rise to these proceedings and to other issues of interest to Mr. Ganley and to the public”. He informed me that he had conducted a telephone interview with Mr Ganley but there is no evidence in his filed copy that he did in fact conduct the interview. For this and other obvious reasons, Village will not be paying him the €500 fee he sought.

Mr Arnold also delayed publication of Village by a day by spuriously claiming he had not been sent a copy of the February-March article.

What Village said about Ganley and the truth

This is the substance of what Village said about Mr Ganley and the Truth in my affidavit, which was not opened in court:

Dick Roche, Minister for European Affairs has maintained that he was accused by Declan Ganley of telling untruths to the general public regarding Mr Ganley’s nationality. However, since those accusations have since been proven to be untrue, it is clear that it is Mr Ganley who has a most unhappy relationship with the truth.

Mr Ganley confronted Minister Roche, live on air during RTE’s News at One in September 2008 accusing him of falsely stating that Mr Ganley had, on occasion, chosen to describe himself as a British national. While Dick Roche acknowledged that there was nothing wrong with being a British national, he considered it odd that Mr Ganley, who sought to proclaim himself as an Irish businessman should choose to describe himself as British, on documents filed with the British Company Registration office. For his part, Mr Ganley denied ever having described himself thus, and accused Minister Roche of spreading falsehoods.

Minister Roche subsequently obtained photocopies of documents filed with the British Company Registration Office, to prove his position. When confronted by Irish Times journalist, Colm Keena for comment in relation to this, Declan Ganley responded that he must have “ticked the wrong box”. In fact, that portion of the relevant documents is either typed or written, showing beyond doubt that either he, or his wife, if she filled out these forms, knew that he had described himself as a British national on the relevant documents.

The foregoing example, where Mr Ganley’s vigorous denials and accusations against Minister Roche ultimately rang hollow, demonstrate his cavalier attitude to the truth, transparency and moral conduct. Indeed, Minister Roche maintains that there are many examples which cast a similar shadow on the Mr Ganley character.

In particular, Minister Roche points to Mr Ganley’s claims that he became Foreign Economic Affairs Advisor to the first Republic of Latvia Government. It has since been shown, including during a lengthy and detailed “Prime Time” programme on RTE television, that Declan Ganley held no such position.

Minister Roche has also pointed to Mr Ganley claims, throughout Libertas’ campaign on the Lisbon Treaty, that a “No” vote in the Lisbon referendum would entitle Ireland to retain its Commissioner. This was manifestly not the position since a “No” vote under Lisbon would pave the way for the provisions of the Nice Treaty to apply, wherein Ireland’s Commissioner would be lost in 2009. In fact, had the Lisbon Treaty entered into force, that date would have been pushed back to 2014.

Similarly, and by way of further example, Minister Roche has pointed to Mr Ganley’s claims, through Libertas, that the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty could lead to the legalisation of abortion in Ireland. Once again, this was, and is, manifestly not the position. In fact, this very point was addressed by Judge O’Neill, chairman of the referendum commission, during a speech dated the 4th June, 2008 where he stated:

“In regard to abortion, Protocol no. 35 to the Treaty of Lisbon on Article 40.3.3. of the Constitution of Ireland states that nothing in the Treaties or in the Treaties or Acts modifying or supplementing those Treaties, shall affect the application in Ireland of Article 40.3.3. of the Constitution of Ireland.

Protocols have full legal force – they have the same legal status as an Article of the Treaties. This Protocol is EU Law and it explicitly excludes Article 40.3.3 of Irish Constitution from any other EU law. This means Ireland’s constitutional position on abortion would not be affected by the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty”.

The foregoing examples, taken together or in isolation, are stark reminders of Mr Ganley’s deplorable attitude to the truth, transparency and moral conduct.

Naoise Nunn who was director of elections for Ganley's Libertas and who was employed first by Rivada Networks and then by Libertas to brand Mr Ganley's party has made a public declaration that is bound to throw cold water on Declan Ganley's election chances. Many people who knew and respected Mr. Nunn were amazed by his association with Mr. Ganley. However in today's Irish Times he stresses that he was an employee of Ganley's while declaring that a? he would not wash Libertas's dirty linen in public (confirming that there is dirty linen) and b/ that people should Vote Yes to Lisbon II.

Nunn has previously embarrassed Ganley by remaining truthful about his being employed (i.e. his pay checks came from) Mr Ganley's US Defence contracting firm Rivada. When Ganley tried to deflect from this Naoise Nunn stuck to the truth earning the admiration of many people including this blogger.

This volte face has been coming for sometime. This blogger can now report that close associates of Mr Nunn's spoke of his unease towards the end of last summer and shortly thereafter Mr. Nunn resigned from Libertas.

Mr. Nunn stating that people should vote Yes for the Lisbon Treaty is a signal to the thirty somethings of Ireland's chattering classes that Mr. Ganley's vision is dead and we must move on.

It will also mark something of a rehabilitation of Naoise Nunn's reputation amongst many who had deeply respected him prior to his working for Mr. Ganley. You can keep up to date with Leviathan events on their official website http://www.leviathan.ie/

DOES not have the luxury of a second No vote in the Lisbon Treaty referendum and voters should vote Yes, one of the architects of last year’s Libertas campaign has said.

Naoise Nunn, who resigned as executive director of Libertas last September said: “The circumstances have changed: internationally, economically, financially and domestically.

“We don’t have the luxury of doing anything else. I am glad that we had a referendum. We were the only member state to do so, to have a proper debate, or something like a proper debate,” Mr Nunn told The Irish Times .

His public declaration will come as an embarrassment for Libertas founder, Declan Ganley, who is running for the organisation in the European Parliament elections in the North-West constituency.

Both sides were guilty, he said, of “scare-mongering and misinformation” during the referendum campaign. Mr Nunn, who was one of the central figures in Libertas’s campaign last year, is understood to have written a detailed critique of Libertas’s performance last year for Mr Ganley’s attention before his departure last year.

However, Mr Nunn declined to reveal its contents yesterday: “I am not into washing dirty linen in public. I did work for Libertas. I was an employee. I was doing my job. I put the arguments out.”

A No vote in the referendum, which is expected to take place in October, would be “dangerous for the country, but I don’t think frankly that that is going to happen”. However, he said he had not changed his view that the EU is “disconnected” from its citizens, though he raised questions about “much vaunted” efforts to communicate a clear message to them.

Asked why he had referred to Libertas as having “dirty linen”, Mr Nunn said: “I don’t want to be specific about that. They are people I worked with. They are people I don’t want to hurl abuse at.”

Questioned about his attitude to his former boss, Mr Nunn, who now runs Leviathan, a political forum, said he had always “got on” with Mr Ganley: “He is a very personable guy.”

He went on: “He is a very driven guy, who is extremely ambitious. He feels he has a role to play in European politics. He is fascinated by all of it. He devours history books. He is absolutely fascinated by all of it.”

Mr Nunn is believed to have been behind Libertas’s successful billboard campaign, which focused on the dangers for Ireland if it lost a permanent place at the European Commission.

While he accepted that commissioners act in the European and not the national interest, he said there is a public perception that it is “almost like a senate of the EU”; and “a lot of people felt the loss of that disconnection.

“But it appears that that issue has been resolved, or, at least, there is a serious will to resolve it,” said Mr Nunn, pointing to an agreement last December among EU leaders that all member states will continue to be represented.

He said he had changed his mind on the treaty before he left Libertas last September: “My opinions evolved. Political views do evolve over time.”

NAOISE Nunn has been busily tweeting on his 'Twitter' site amid the continued fall-out from the junior ministerial reshuffle.

In advance of the controversial 'Late Late Show' appearance of John McGuinness, his 'Twitter' site was telling its 131 followers that it would be "interesting" to hear what the scorned junior minister would have to say about the Government.

Since then, visitors have been invited to examine a poll on another political website showing that 95.5pc don't believe Tanaiste Mary Coughlan is up to the job and to log onto another site where they can discuss the "blunders of Mary".

When not tweeting, Dublin-born Mr Nunn (37) runs a very active and successful "political consultancy and events" business from his base in Galway.

The list of past activities is long and varied. He is the founder and producer of the political cabaret 'Leviathan' show, director of the 'Spoken Word' area at the Electric Picnic Festival, line producer of 'I, Keano: The Musical' and manager of the comedy group 'Apres Match'.

Between 2001 and 2005, he was one of the editorial staff in Leinster House, before joining Libertas in October 2006 as its executive director.

Last year, as the Lisbon Treaty campaign raged on, Mr Nunn found himself at the centre of some controversy when it emerged that he was an employee of Declan Ganley's company Rivada Network which has links with the US military.

The revelation prompted Libertas to come out and insist that Rivada was not funding Libertas and that any employees working with the anti-Lisbon Treaty organisation did so in a strictly voluntary capacity.

Mr Nunn confirmed last night that he would switch sides in the forthcoming Lisbon Treaty re-run and support a 'Yes' vote. He said Ireland had "completely transformed" since the treaty was rejected last June and the changed circumstances meant that Ireland, more than ever, needed to be a strong member of the EU.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Dominika Pszczolkowska the Polish Brussels correspondent for Gazeta Wyborcza has raised some disturbing issues regarding Libertas in Poland. She notes that they have tried to strengthen their position by recruiting from the far right.

One Libertas candidate is senator Ryszard Bender, an ex member of the League of Polish Families who is now in PiS (Law and Justice). He is extreme right winger whose anti Semitism has been noted in academic journals

Similarly theIndex on Censorship describes the LPR as 'the most far-right' party in the Sejm andSamoobrona as 'the most extreme'.7 Noting that one LPR leader (Ryszard Bender) hadcampaigned against President Kwasniewski's commemoration of the Jedwabne massacre, theStephen Roth Institute at Tel Aviv University describes the LPR as the 'first party of the anti-semític extreme right in postwar Polish history to gain seats in parliament'.Similarly, theInstitute's claim that Andrzej Lepper of Samoobrona 'has tried to distance himself from hisfar right past...by condemning antisemitism' seems to imply that he was (and perhaps still is)both far right and antisemític.page 4 http://aei.pitt.edu/2897/01/136.pdf

The Polish branch of Libertas may not be as dead as it looked. They are battling for candidates with Law and Justice (Kaczyński’s party) and have managed to attract some known euroscetics.

Some time ago I reported here that Declan Ganley’s Libertas has veered off course in Poland and is linking itself with very marginal figures. I don’t know if they heard my message, but it seems they are trying to fix the problem. Thay have had some success in attracting hard euroscepric right wingers.

One of them, as Gazeta Wyborcza reports here (in Polish) is Anna Sobecka, currently an MP with Law and Justice, and formerly a presenter with Radio Maryja. The radio (if you haven’t heard) is notorious for its right wing, antieuropean and antisemitic views, but at a certain stage was the most influential voice of the extreme right in Poland.

Another Libertas candidate is senator Ryszard Bender, also an extreme right winger attracted by Law and Justice during the last election to push the League of Polish Families off the political stage.

This shows that Libertas is managing to enter the main current of extreme right wingers in Poland. The Law and Justice are obviously afraid of a new rival on the right and are trying to attract extremists as well - their candidate in Łódź will be current MEP Urszula Krupa (elected previously from the now nearly dead League of Polish Families) who has publicly stated that the aim of the EU is to reduce the number of Poles to 15 mln (from the current 39 mln or so. Don’t ask me how).

So does all this mean Libertas will win any votes in Poland? I still don’t think so. The times for extreme right wingers are (finally) not good in Poland. Being on the right side of Law and Justice can’t do Libertas any good. The 5% threshhold is still very far. But it’s nice to watch their competition with Law and Justice, let’s hope they weaken each other.

Also, it’s amazing how far the Polish Libertas is from Declan Ganley’s message of being proeuropean, but against the Lisbon treaty. These guys are antieuropean, not to mention as backward as they come. Have you noticed, Mr. Ganley?

Noting that one LPR leader (Ryszard Bender) had campaigned against President Kwasniewski's commemoration of the Jedwabne massacre, the Stephen Roth Institute at Tel Aviv University describes the LPR as the 'first party of the anti-semític extreme right in postwar Polish history to gain seats in parliament'.

The Jedwabne massacre (or pogrom), which Ryszard Bender didn't want President Kwasniewski to commemorate, led to the death of up to 440 Jewish men, women and children:

Quote:

A month later, on the morning of July 10 1941, by the order of mayor Karolak and German gendarmerie, a group of non-Jewish Poles from Jedwabne and its neighborhood rounded up the local Jews as well as those seeking refuge from nearby towns and villages such as Wizna and Kolno. The Jews were taken to the square in the centre of Jedwabne, where they were ordered to pluck grass, attacked and beaten. A group of about 40 Jews were forced to demolish a statue of Lenin erected by NKWD and then carry it out of town while singing Soviet songs. The local rabbi was forced to lead this procession. The group was taken to a pre-emptied barn, killed and buried along with fragments of the monument, while most of the remaining Jews, estimated at around 250 to 400, including many women and children, were led to the same barn later that day, locked inside and burned alive using kerosene from the former Soviet supplies (or German gasoline, by different accounts) in the presence of eight German gendarmes shooting those trying to escape. The remains of both groups were buried in two mass graves in the barn.

The other candidate mentioned, Anna Sobecka, is a staunchly conservative Catholic, who claimed (Google Translate) that the Charter of Fundamental Rights would 'encourage abortion and euthanasia', open 'the door to eugenic practices', lead to the 'promotion of gay pseudo-marriage', protect 'homosexual orientation', 'encourage children to rebel against parents' and would lead to the 'elimination of marriage as the sole foundation of the family'.

She also stated that 'the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights [would] strengthen trends towards discrimination against Catholics because of their religious and moral beliefs 'and that 'people faithful to [Christian] values [would] become second-class Europeans' if the Charter became law.